


to where the sparrow flies

by antikytheras



Series: i made poor life choices and now i have to write genyatta everyday [7]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, M/M, but it's not angsty either, genji's supposedly a simple barista, it goes about as well as you'd expect, the shimada clan is still Problematic, this is not exactly a happy fic, zen's an art student
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 04:21:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13605417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antikytheras/pseuds/antikytheras
Summary: Genji gulps down his glass of orange juice, then sets the glass down on the table with a quiet clink instead of a noisy bang, and that’s how Hanzo knows he’s ready to be a positive contribution to society again.‘I’m going to bake a cake,’ Genji says very seriously, and this time Hanzo really does throw his newspaper across the room. It lands on his brother's head with a satisfying thwack.





	to where the sparrow flies

**Author's Note:**

> technically i _have_ been writing everyday, i just haven't been _posting_ everyday

Zenyatta likes to draw his favourite barista. Every afternoon, he sits in the (surprisingly) not-too crowded café and doodles on a brown napkin until each and every square inch of the 100% recycled paper is covered in snapshots of bright green hair and an accompanying lovely face. He’s gone through two green pens in the past week alone and he’s not sure when he’s ever had to buy a new box of pencil leads this quickly.

But see, here’s the thing: Zenyatta’s been stuck in the most horrible art block for _weeks_ , and he has a very important scholarship-related exhibition coming up, which means that if he doesn’t want Mondatta to kill himself working three jobs just so he can send his baby brother through university, he’s going to have to produce a whole wall’s worth of pieces by the end of the month.

And here’s the _thing_ : it’s nearing the first of whatever godforsaken month this is (he honestly doesn’t know, all he’s been doing is scrolling through Netflix and losing track of the days and weeks until he turns up for meetings a whole day early) and he doesn’t so much have a lick of a clue what _theme_ he’s even going to work with.

But he tries to tell himself that it’s okay, really, it is! He’s procrastinated harder than this before, albeit for things of much less importance, and he’s always trusted in the adage about the many paths to success, except he’s also trusted in the good ol’ force of karma and _okay_ here comes the stress again.

A cup of coffee slides into view, breaking his cycle of nonsensical thoughts.

Zenyatta flicks his gaze up without moving his head. It’s an action he’s perfected over the years, drawing from still life without disrupting too many muscles in his body whenever he looks between the canvas and the subject.

Oh, and that’s definitely the subject alright.

The barista had apparently slid into the seat opposite him along with the coffee. He smiles easily, without the slightest hint of nervousness in his eyes. Zenyatta just-barely stops himself from sketching _that_ out, not with his unaware subject this close by.

‘Yo,’ the barista says, folding his arms on the table.

Zenyatta stiffens, as if someone had decided to electrocute his spine. ‘Hello,’ he says back tentatively. He tries not to stare at the barista’s arms. For the art, of course.

‘Slow day.’

Zenyatta tries to discreetly stow his scribbled-on napkin in a pocket. ‘Is it?’

The barista stretches. ‘Yeah, usually we get a lot more students coming in around this hour. Maybe there’s a promotion going on at the nearby Starbucks or something? Oh well. Not like there’s anything I can do about it. You studying at the nearby campus? I’m a mass comms major.’

He’s talking a lot, but it’s not entirely unwelcome.

‘Fine arts,’ Zenyatta admits in turn. He can already hear the next question in his mind, and he tries his best not to show his depair on his face. There’s no way he’s showing the barista his borderline-stalker-ish scribbles of his face. In varying art styles. To varying degrees of complexity. Shaded in varying amounts of colour. This is going to turn out terribly.

The barista’s face actually lights up in excitement, but instead of looking at the napkin curled under Zenyatta’s fist, he smiles at him with his eyes and exclaims, ‘Oh! Are you gonna be part of the showcase for scholars?’

‘Yes,’ Zenyatta says a beat too late, caught off-guard. ‘But I’ve been having trouble coming up with a theme. So I’m hoping a change of scenery will aid in providing some inspiration.’

The barista’s expression seems just a touch too contemplative, but Zenyatta supposes that it’s his poor overworked imagination seeing things. ‘I don’t know a lot about art,’ he says apologetically, ‘but hey, if you need any caffeine during Hell Week, just hit me up. I’ll give you free refills or something. Can’t get you too many free drinks, though, my brother might kill me.’

Zenyatta can’t help the smile that creeps onto his face. ‘Much appreciated.’

The barista outright stares. Then he shakes his head and sighs. ‘I’d love to talk more, but— Gotta get back to work.’ The barista starts getting to his feet, and Zenyatta spots the coffee cup he seems to have abandoned.

‘Wait, your coffee—’

The barista blinks. ‘Oh, no, that’s on the house. Didn’t manage to get your name so I just scribbled mine on the side. Hope you don’t mind!’

And that’s all the explanation Zenyatta gets before the barista waves and ducks into the back room.

With a _touch_ more anticipation than he’d like to admit, he turns the cup until he can see the name scrawled along the side.

He finds himself murmuring it, as if testing the weight of the word on his tongue.

‘Genji, is it?’

 

 

 

 

 

Genji ducks into the back room with a scowl on his face. ‘I told you it was nothing,’ he snaps.

Hanzo glares back at him from the corner he’s lurking in with his arms folded. ‘This could have compromised our entire operation!’

‘What, daily scribbles of my _face_?’

‘We don’t know to what end they will be used.’

‘Oh, fuck off, brother,’ Genji sighs, irritated. ‘What do you want, physical proof? Want me to break into his house and steal every single napkin with my face doodled all over it just to prove to you that not everyone’s a cheating liar like you?’

The silence is deafening.

‘You’re kidding.’

Hanzo smirks. ‘I believe _you_ were the one who even brought it up. _Finally_ you contribute to the family business.’

‘I _am_ contributing to the family business! I _have been_ contributing to the family business! Who do you think makes these coffees and pastries every day?’

Hanzo is as cold as their late Father’s corpse when he says, ‘That is not the business Father would have wanted you to inherit.’

‘But someone has to run the front operations, right? I never wanted anything to do with your world,’ Genji snaps, with words that must have turned to acid because Hanzo flinches when he steps forward. ‘I just wanted a normal life.’

The ice in Hanzo’s eyes spreads to his voice when he says, ‘From the day you were born, you could have been steeped in the golden _piss_ of this life and still you will never be able to repay the debt you owe the family.’

Genji snorts. ‘You are projecting again, brother.’

‘Regardless of your foolish, unfounded assessments of my psychological state, you did suggest a very good solution for the trouble _you_ made. Your talents always did lie in… a particular field.’

Genji laughs mirthlessly. ‘Father was right. You’re too unlikable; no wonder he thought you’d need a _honeypot_ for your right-hand man.’

He can see Hanzo deciding that their conversation is over. ‘Two weeks,’ is the idle threat he gets before Hanzo turns and stalks away, out the back door to where Genji knows his sleek black limousine is parked beside his own scuffed, rickety bicycle.

Long after his brother’s shadow leaves the threshold of the Genji’s little slice of heaven, he whispers, ‘Fuck you,’ to the air. Then he turns back to clean the countable sugar crystal fragments that his brother had left when he’d helped himself to Genji’s stocks and made himself his eighth cup of coffee for the morning.

 

 

 

 

 

Zenyatta doesn’t even _like_ coffee. But Genji keeps refilling his mocha like clockwork before he even _thinks_ about opening his mouth to ask.

‘So, what theme are you going for?’ he asks after the third pour. The café’s empty again, so Genji plops himself on the seat opposite Zenyatta and leans in conspicuously.

Zenyatta’s never been one to fidget, but now his foot’s vibrating a mile a minute against the floor. Apparently, coffee doesn’t really like him either. But it sure is helping to kickstart the old rusted motor of ideas in his head.

‘Perhaps I could do a piece on hell as Dante imagined it, except every circle is replaced by a different fast food establishment.’

Every word that had just come out of his mouth is absolute gibberish, and Genji stares at him blankly for a long second. Before Zenyatta can start to panic about scaring the cute barista away with his weirdness, something seems to shift, almost imperceptibly, in the smile that kinda looks plastered to his face now that Zenyatta’s _really_ looking. Before he can read anything into it, the light comes back into Genji’s eyes and he dissolves into a fit of laughter.

‘Sounds great. Someone needs to call out the asshats who don’t tip properly.’

Something strikes Zenyatta as being not-quite-right, so it’s a long while before he decides to haunt the café with the cute barista again.

 

 

 

 

 

Hanzo looks up from his newspaper crossly. ‘What do you mean, threat eliminated?’

‘He hasn’t been back a single day in the _two weeks_ you gave me to deal with him since I laughed at his post-modern fast food criticism,’ Genji snaps, more agitated than Hanzo’s seen him in a while. He’s milling around in the hall between the kitchens and the dining room, where Hanzo’s seated at the head of the table. He’s seen him go in and out of the kitchens about seven times at this point. It’s hard to resist the urge to throw the salt shaker in his stupid brother’s face.

‘Sit down,’ Hanzo says patiently, ‘and just eat your cereal.’

A hungry Genji has always been a nightmare to handle, even for their Father, so Hanzo forces himself to continue reading the papers until Genji’s morning hunger is sufficiently sated.

Genji gulps down his glass of orange juice, then sets the glass down on the table with a quiet clink instead of a noisy bang, and that’s how Hanzo knows he’s ready to be a positive contribution to society again.

‘I’m going to bake a cake,’ Genji says very seriously, and this time Hanzo really does throw the newspaper across the room. It lands on his wayward brother’s head with a satisfying thwack.

‘Tell me what’s going on,’ Hanzo demands.

‘I don’t know!’ Genji yells. ‘I want to bake cakes and make enough coffee to caffeinate _you_ for an entire week! I don’t want to think about the kid who keeps coming back to my café because he thinks it’s about to close down with the _absolutely deliberate_ lack of foot traffic we get and he feels bad for me and he’s actually _fun_ to listen to, not like the old rich geezers Father used to sicc me on—’

‘Enough,’ Hanzo begs, holding up a hand and wondering, not for the first time, how they could possibly be related. ‘Take your crush with you into the kitchens and bake your cakes and brew your coffees. I don’t care what you do so long as you’re on time to receive the shipment coming by in the early evening. You don’t even have to open the café every day, why do— Have you been studying?’

Genji rolls his eyes petulantly. ‘I still have all my A’s, don’t worry.’

‘Good,’ Hanzo says, closing his eyes for the briefest of moments. In that split second, all of the exhaustions and responsibilities heaped upon his shoulders threaten to come crashing down over his head.

There’s a loud clunk on the table before him. His eyes snap open, his hand already flicking the safety off his revolver—

It’s just a cup of coffee, brewed at the perfect temperature, just the way he likes it. Genji is nowhere to be seen— He must have dozed off. He shakes himself awake and reaches for the mug. He can’t afford to waste any time.

The coffee’s as good as always.

In the distance, he hears Genji happily humming, accompanied by the shrill whirr of his electric hand-mixer. It suddenly hits him, how _young_ Genji is—

And he stops there, staring at the tipping point of the world resting upon his shoulders.

He’s only three years older, and already his head and heart are filled with grey.

Hanzo closes his eyes and gets up. He’s been away from his work too long, and there are forms to be signed and men to be blackmailed. When he walks through the halls of their overgrown mansion, it feels like he’s stepping back into the shadow he’s been raised to fill his whole life.

Amidst the wreckage, he lets himself wonder (allowing himself one small indulgence in his transgressions) just when he got so old.

 

 

 

 

 

Zenyatta hasn’t left the studio in _weeks_.

He’s not the only one who’s brought in a sleeping bag. Even now, when he goes to the trash chute to dispose of his latest work because it’s _just barely not-quite-right_ , he quietly steps past the sleeping bodies of his fellow students.

It’s five in the morning, which means that most of the night owls are dead to the world and the early birds haven’t quite started stirring yet. But Zenyatta likes this hour best, the strange twilight zone between night-and-day, between the hours of I-should-be-asleep and I-should-be-awake.

His exhaustion has already worn him down to the bone, his wrists have never taken more abuse, but this—

He stops, staring out the window. The sky is dark, so very dark, but somehow the blackness looks brighter than the colour black has any right to be.

This feels like the only time he’ll be able to do his creation justice.

So he sits in front of a new blank canvas and begins to paint. The colours start coming together nicely when the first rays of the sun break through the cover of night.

He sets his brush down just as the door to the art studio slides open. Genji’s the last person he expects to come through, but he does, bearing a familiar coffee cup in one hand.

Genji’s eyes widen in recognition, then the corner of his lip tilts up in satisfaction. And beneath all that, the mask he’s been wearing the whole time— It’s gone, and now all that stands between Zenyatta and the lying barista he’s fallen in love with is a bright, easy smile and desperate relief hiding behind relaxed brown eyes. ‘So that’s where you’ve been,’ he murmurs.

Zenyatta laughs, quietly. He hasn’t spoken to anyone in a while, so the very act of speaking feels strange when he begins to move his lips. ‘Hell week does indeed live up to its name.’

‘I missed you,’ Genji says, so simple and straightforward that even _he_ looks surprised at the words coming out of his own mouth.

Zenyatta closes his eyes. It’s a testament to how tired he is. He never thought he’d see the day where he’d rather look at a bed than at his favourite thing to draw in the world.

‘When can you come back?’ he hears Genji ask, so eager yet so careful not to push too hard.

It’s been a rough couple weeks— at least, that’s what Zenyatta tells himself when there are tears in his eyes as he replies, ‘When you stop lying to me.’

Genji sets the coffee down on the corner of Zenyatta’s assigned table. He sits down on a stool meant for volunteer models and leans forward, fingers clasped together under his chin. There’s a table stacked (neatly) to spilling with art supplies between them, and Zenyatta feels a little twinge of guilt at the _relief_ he feels now that there’s some proper barrier between them.

Genji’s gaze sweeps over the room— checking for bugs, spies, secretly-awake art students and the like, Zenyatta realises— and when he’s satisfied, he starts to tell his tale. Zenyatta hears the cool detachment in his voice when he explains his father’s unnatural death, the resignation when he reveals the _Cosa Nostra_ behind the family business, the flat tone when he explains his extensive-and-specialised education in his upbringing. He doesn’t hear the slightest _hint_ of a plea, doesn’t see the slightest _inch_ of give in the steel looming in Genji’s eyes, and that’s how he knows exactly what deep trouble he’s bound to end up in if he continues down this path.

But Zenyatta looks at the paradox presented in the masked, crouching monster centred on his canvas, so proud-and-dangerous yet so small-and-scared, and so it’s with a gentle smile that he says, ‘I’m afraid I’m not entirely awake at the moment, so you may have to remind me of some things again later, but right now I would really like a nap and you’re welcome to talk me to sleep.’

Later, when Genji curls around him in a surprisingly comfortable tangle of limbs in the tiny square of space afforded to them by his Zenyatta’s tinier sleeping bag, he’s really not too sure which of them is more grateful to the other.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s obvious when the art student starts swinging by the café again.

Because Genji goes from moping to being _absolutely insufferable_ , and frankly Hanzo doesn’t know which is worse.

He’d been rambling about the toxicity of certain old-fashioned paints for the better part of half an hour. The only toxins Hanzo could give half a shit about right now are the ones being housed in the underground bunker buried beneath Genji’s pitiful attempt at playing young entrepreneur.

‘—then he said that my brother sounded interesting, and I told him that you weren’t at all, and then he said that he could bet what you’d say if you knew what I’d been helping him with—’

‘Use protection,’ he says blandly, having already tuned his kid brother’s rambling out of his mind while he analyses his analyst’s dense quarterly report. They need to shift their investments from gold to crypto, he thinks, and is pleased when the analyst comes to the same conclusion twenty pages later.

It’s been way too quiet. Hanzo tears his eyes from his report, and the pure shock etched across Genji’s face is enough to make him pause and realise what he’d said.

He’s spent years trying to really _become_ an adult, someone fit to lead their Father’s sole remaining heirloom, and now he really thinks about what type of person this art student must be, someone who could unravel his lies so easily without having ever met him.

 

 

 

 

 

‘Do you want to live like this?’

A beat. Then a sigh. ‘No.’

Slow, lazy circles, one finger tracing the curve of a hip. ‘Then perhaps you should tell your brother.’

‘I’ve tried,’ Genji snaps, anger directed not at Zenyatta but at his brother and his family and the _golden piss_ he’d been baptised (drowned) in long before he could make a decision about who he was and what he really wanted.

The outburst slides over Zenyatta like water over a whale’s back. He continues tracing nonsensical shapes into whatever bits of Genji’s skin his fingers can explore. ‘Your brother wishes to be seen as an adult, yes? Then speak to him like one, and he will listen as an equal.’

Genji laughs. ‘I am an adult.’

‘Barely,’ Zenyatta points out, punctuating the word by idly pressing one nail to the thinnest part of Genji’s skin so that he leaves a tiny crescent-moon mark. It will fade within minutes. ‘And you do so rarely act like one— Not that I don’t appreciate your eternally youthful outlook,’ he adds wryly, ‘but I doubt Hanzo does.’

‘I don’t want him to stay caught up in this,’ Genji admits quietly, looking at a sliver of setting-sun sliding against the white walls of his cupboards.

Zenyatta stops his whimsical doodling. ‘It will be much harder for him to leave. To be frank, I don’t know if he _can_. At this point, from what you’ve told me— The family is him, and he _is_ the family. His whole life, he’s been brought up to become one thing, and he’s bowed his head to everything asked of him. The most he’s done— the most he _could do—_ is shelter _you_ from the mountains he’s trained to shoulder his whole life.’

Then, a pained confession. ‘I don’t want to leave him.’

Zenyatta closes his eyes. ‘I know.’

Genji stews in his misery for a while longer before getting up from their (now) shared bed.

He makes sure to kiss Zenyatta before he goes. For luck, of course.

 

 

 

 

 

After a civil discussion that ends in a fight of magnificent proportions, Hanzo can only sit behind his late Father’s desk and watch Genji go.

Every cell in his body screams at him to run, to drag his foolish kid brother back kicking and screaming if he has to, to— He has to—

(Follow, and never look back.)

Hanzo closes his eyes and feels the weight of the world resting upon his shoulders once more. It’s become a reassuring weight by now, the only force great enough to root him to the shit-and-mud of their— no, _his_ reality. With a bitter smile, he thinks he shouldn’t have kicked his brother out from under the mountains a long time ago, that he shouldn’t have saved his brother from this fate.

(He doesn’t— won’t _ever_ regret it.)

And now he watches, with the strangest mix of relief-and-hatred, as his brother flits out of their life with the lightest step he’s had in years and years.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/_antikytheras)


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